


When Darkness Dies

by NorroenDyrd



Series: Remedios' Remedy [2]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Backstory, Dark Brotherhood - Freeform, Dark Brotherhood OC, Dark Past, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, False Identity, Flashbacks, Gore, Horror, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Listener Is Not Dragonborn, Regret, Waking Nightmares Quest, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-14 02:03:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7994605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorroenDyrd/pseuds/NorroenDyrd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When all the inhabitants of the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary (save, perhaps, for Babette - but she does have... her own sleeping patterns) start experiencing exceptionally vivid nightmares, the Listener's close friend and protege, a young Breton woman who is still haunted by shadows of her past, is sent to Dawnstar to investigate. She is yet to discover that this mission of hers will give her an opportunity to leave behind the blood-stained path of an assassin (which she only followed out of gratitude to her friend, and out of the belief that she has nowhere else to turn), as well as tap into the mystical powers of the Dragonborn and find solace in true love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Darkness Dies

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be the first chapter of a fan fic about how a member of the Dark Brotherhood (non-Listener OC) is sent to investigate the nightmares in Dawnstar, meets Erandur (who helps her come to terms with her messed-up past), falls in love with him, leaves the Brotherhood (with the help of the Listener, who has always been sympathetic towards her, and has quite a story of his own), returns to the face sculptor to revert to her real face, starts using her old name again, goes off adventuring with Erandur, and finds out she is the Dragonborn. Phew, that was a mouthful.
> 
> But then, shortly before submitting this story, I realized that I had used quite a bunch of forbidden cliches (the story begins with the heroine waking up from a dream; the heroine looks at herself in the mirror, which gives the writer an excuse to describe her appearance; the heroine has 'perfect' features - granted, she will fix them later, but still), and that sort of killed my enthusiasm. Still, there are some things about this story that I do like, so I decided to share it regardless.

It is, once again, summer in the little village in High Rock, nestled at the foothills of the Druadach Mountains, on the very border with the province of Skyrim. Everything should be in bloom, dazzling the onlooker with bright bursts of vibrant colour; the soil should give off a wave of rich, wet, tangy smell; and the sun should pour its life-giving light generously through the gaps between the branches of the colossal, ancient trees, weaving curious patterns as the golden stream caresses the rippling clouds of lush foliage. So it should be - but it is not.  
  
There are plenty of colours filling the forest on the mountainside, as well as the village below - but they are all wrong, as if reversed by some strange (and more than a little ominous) magic. Instead of its usual clear, cloudless summertime blue, the sky overhead is tinted a sickly, pallid yellow, and the sun, high in its zenith, burns dark-red, resembling a huge, lumpy piece of coal with the last flicker of flame barely alive in its heart (and giving off no more heat that a dying ember would). Its rays spread from it in jagged red threads, crossing the yellow sky like swollen veins in a tired, bloodshot eye - and the tree leaves that they touch on their way down (the ones that yet remain, clinging on to the dry, brittle upper boughs of the creaking trees) are far from green. They are all brown and withered, as if it were the middle of autumn; their edges curl inward, and are touched in places by fuzzy greyish streaks of mould. The same mould covers the ground, in a springy, sticky carpet that reeks of rot and decay. Taking just one look at it, as this gigantic mould stain continues to grow rapidly, its fuzzy wave crawling up the roots of the grey, dead trees, causes a long, violent retching spasm - but this spasm needs to be pushed back, as forcibly as possible. Because walking across this sickly carpet is exactly what has to be done to get out of this wretched place. No, not walking. Running.  
  
And she runs. On and on, as fast as her legs can carry her. She runs through the dead forest, trying to ignore the nauseating squelching of the rancid earth under her feet, and the burning pain her left side, and the throbbing of the deep, bleeding scratches that the barren lower branches of the dry trees leave on her forearms, as they sink their leafless claws into her... dress? By Sithis, she has not worn a dress in ages! She does not remember having it on when she found herself in this oddly coloured wasteland. And yet, here it is, looking just like that silly, ruffled Sundas garment that she once paraded around, so proud of being a real grown woman, with an absolutely, positively real lover... But the dress doesn't really matter now. All that matters is running.  
  
And she runs. Getting blinded by her own sweat after what seems like endless miles behind her; stumbling, wheezing, grabbing at the dead tree trunks for support - she runs. Her strength is failing her, and she is yet to see the end of her winding, mildew-coated path - but she runs. She has no choice but to run - for she knows they are not far behind her. She cannot recall if she ever glanced behind at them, if she ever actually saw them - but she is certain they are there. She can picture them clearly in her mind's eye: rows upon rows of ragged figures, with their skin coming off their limbs and faces in large, reddish-orange flakes, and with ripe, moist pustules adorning their foreheads and wrists like sickening sets of jewellery. With a sharp, prickling feeling raising the bristling copper hairs at the back of her neck (yes, copper: as she can tell from the loose strands that whip against her perspiring face, her hair, which she dyed long ago, has miraculously turned its natural red again), she can sense how the distance between herself and this crowd of lumbering, deformed creatures, who once were men and women of her village, grows shorter and shorter and shorter. She can catch a whiff of the acidic odour of their vomit, which is splattered all over the front of their clothes; she can her them grunt and gnash their teeth, grasping stupidly at thin air in an attempt to catch hold of the hem of her dress. They have not managed to do that, so far - but with every sweep of their searching arms, their fingers come closer and closer to touching the torn, mud-soiled fabric. If she does not speed up; if, gods forbid, she falters while trying to steady her rattling breath - then, they will get her. They will get her and drag her off the path, somewhere into the dark, cold heart of the withered forest, groping and prodding at her with their slimey fingers all the way. And they will bring her to where the shepherd of their plague-ridden flock stands waiting - waiting for her. She cannot explain how she knows it, but she does - and she can see him, too, just like she can see his 'sheep': a short, black-robed elf with an angular face the colour of tanned leather, and whiteless eyes like gaping pits. He will fall upon her, heavy as the weight of a mountain despite his small stature, his lust tearing her apart till she bleeds; and when he is finished, he will throw her to the flock, and they will trample over her, ripping, gnawing, scraping, till nothing is left but a mass of putrid flesh.  
  
These haunting, gruesome images fill her mind, replaying their sequence again and again and again, while she still runs, blood bubbling in her pulsing lungs, her pursuers never falling back. Suddenly, the path, which has so far been snaking its way among scores and scores of identical-looking trees, takes a steep turn upwards; so steep that she finds herself trapped in a dead end, facing an almost ideally vertical wall mouldy soil and tangled roots, about twice as tall as she is. On the very top of that wall, appearing to have woven themselves out of thin air, there stand four people, embracing one another by the shoulders. Unlike the rest of the villagers, they have not been touched by the disfiguring sickness; and it is painfully easy for her to recognize their jovial, smiling faces. They are just as she remembers them: her mother, buxom and ruddy-faced after years and years of farm work out in the open air, her large, soft body exuding a welcoming warmth like a village hearth in the middle of winter; her grandfather, toothless and squinty-eyed like a newborn mutt (and just as loveable, too! Unless you have come to critique his prizewinning pumpkins); her aunt, all prim and stiff and buttoned up in that dress she copied from a decades-old catalogue of Daggerfall fashions - and at the same time, uncharacteristically happy to see her, 'that wanton little troublemaker' who used to be so fond of disrupting the proper order of things, especially if said disruptions involved magical explosions in the pantry. And her father, her beloved Papa, with his grizzled ginger hair flowing in the wind and his alchemical reagent-stained hands resting on his trusty cane, which he has had to rely on ever since, back during his adventuring days, he got trampled over by a Dwarven Centurion gone berserk. They are all here - her family. Her loved ones. They have come to give her a helping hand - to save her from that horrid fate that she can envision in such detail.  
  
'Mama,' she whispers tearfully, leaning forward and closing her fingers round the slippery roots, with her face upturned and her lips parted in a twitching smile. 'Papa... Granpa... Aunt Gervaise... You are back! Please - please help me!'  
  
With a small, anxious gasp, her mother readily reaches down - but Papa promptly stops her, barring her way with his cane.  
  
'Annette, dearest,' he urges his wife softly, 'Don't you remember? She killed you! She killed you, and your poor old father! Her lover told her to put poison in your food, and so she did! And she enjoyed every moment of your agony!'  
  
'No!'  
  
She cannot hear the sound of her voice, her blood pounding in her ears - but she hopes to heaven that she is screaming.  
  
'No! I didn't! I swear I didn't! I didn't even know it was poison - he told me it was just a sleeping draught, so I could sneak away to meet him! And when the village decided to punish me for what I did, I accepted that punishment - because I wanted to suffer! I wanted to suffer so much! Please! Please!..'  
  
But try as she might to appeal to him, pound as she might against the wall with her clenched fists, her Papa still remains deaf to her desperate outcry.  
  
'You know,' he says thoughtfully, tapping against the knob of his cane, 'You killed me, too. You got yourself involved with a vengeful vampire whose coven I once disposed of - and he finally got back at me when I tried to rescue you. He may have landed the final blow, but yours was the hand that guided him. You killed me, child. You killed me as sure as you killed my Annette. You committed... How do you call it when it's both patricide and matricide? Patri-matricide?'  
  
He laughs to himself - a cold, hollow laugh, which sounds nothing like the one she remembers. As he does, his lips stretch out, exposing his teeth - and then continue pulling further and further apart, far beyond what is natural, still with a loud ripping noise, his skin suddenly bursts at the seams and falls off like a discarded mask, exposing a bare, manically grinning skull.  
  
Her chest pierced by an unseen (and yet so staggering) shard of cold, she stares blankly into the empty sockets that, but moments before, held her Papa's eyes - and then she realizes that the rest of the family members have undergone the same unnerving transformation. In a flash, their flesh and clothes have been swept off, and all that remains now are four skeletons, standing in a row on the top of the steep wall in front of her, still embracing one another with their bony arms - and still smiling. Only now their smiles are more like hungry, feral snarls; to exacerbate this impression, their teeth slowly grow longer and sharper, like those of a wolf or even a sabre cat. Even Grandfather has inexplicably acquired two rows of whole new teeth, which click and chomp and chatter - as do the teeth of the other three skeletons, and also those of the plague husks, which are still there, still closing in, more persistent than ever before, now that their quarry has become completely petrified, unable to move an inch. And here it finally is, that feeling she foresaw inside her mind - a clammy, pus-smeared hand closing in round her arm, just above the elbow, ready to yank her back, to hurl her into the putrid embrace of disease and death.  
  
'Serves you right, child,' one of the skeletons says maliciously, doing a morbidly comical little dance with his cane, which is the only element of his garb that is still there.  
  
'Serves you right. Next time, think twice before you betray your family'.  
  
With a her mouth open so wide in a noiseless scream that her jaw begins to hurt, she attempts to jerk free of the plagued villager's vice-like hold - and the next thing she knows, she catches sight of the familiar vaulted ceiling and age-old, mossy stone walls, bathed in a soothing bluish light. Flapping her lips like a fish out of water, she gropes around herself - and soon discovers that she is lying on her back in a narrow wooden bed, her linen and beast pelt covers all crumpled up at her feet in a messy heap. Blinking several times to clear off the blotchy fog that clouds her vision, she strains her neck to raise her heavy, leaden head, wincing at the sensation of how sticky her skin is with patches of cold sweat. After that, she also lifts one her limp, numb arms, and focuses all her effort on conjuring up a smooth, slightly glowing crystal of enchanted ice. As it floats up from her palm, she squeezes up her eyes - for the spell's light, while soft and muted, still manages to blind her for a moment. After a few more aggressive blinks, she is finally able to make out her reflection in the ice shard's surface.  
  
Oh thank Sithis! It is still her; the real her - the present her. That scared girl running through the forest, with prickly brambles tearing at her skirt and her worst nightmares breathing down her neck and staring in her face - that was her other self from a long time ago, when she had another name and another life. That self does not matter any longer; the one that matters is this self, today's self, the owner of her pale, somewhat distorted reflection in the hovering crystal. With hair that is not red and long and messy, but jet-black and combed back into a neat, short haircut; with a face that is not girlishly round and imperfectly proportioned, but chiselled with utmost care into a an unnaturally symmetrical waxen mask - a masterwork of a visage, crafted for her by the face sculptor in the bowels of the Riften Ratway when she, finally free from her Daedra-worshipping captor and his horde of Afflicted, set out to start a new life, under a new name, with the blessing of a new god, who accepted all people like her, all outcasts and pariahs with blood on their hands, and embraced them as his children. And now that she had awoken from that bloodcurdling dream, she is back to living this new life. She is back home. Back in the Sanctuary.  
  
'Hey there Rosalie,' a small voice speaks up from the murk at her bedside, making her start. 'You too, huh?'  
  
Pushing herself up into a sitting pose, Rosalie (yes, yes - that is her name now - chosen by her new Brothers and Sisters; Rosalie is who she is, who she will always be now) throws her legs over the edge of her bed and peers in front of her, at the small, brown-haired human girl, seemingly no more than years old, who is standing with her head cocked to the side curious and her arms thrust behind her back.  
  
'What do you mean, me too?' Rosalie asks, a little groggily.  
  
'Imagine that,' the girl lets out a weary, exasperated sigh. 'I return after a long night hunt, ready to relax with a good book before my daytime nap... And find my silly apprentice wailing her head off because she had a bad dream!'  
  
The words 'my apprentice' sound quite odd when uttered by such a small child - but when the girl turns her head, and the glimmer of the spell brings her features out more clearly, it becomes apparent that she has to have lived long enough to take on many, many apprentices. For her pouty little mouth outlined in strokes of fresh, ripe crimson, coloured by her recent meal; and the tips of her teeth that peek from underneath the curve of her upper lip are sharp like tiny razor blades.  
  
'You can see for yourself,' she says, pointing at a farther end of the underground chamber. 'She wouldn't come down, so I poked our favourite Listener and told him to do something about his wifey dearest'.  
  
Slipping out of bed, Rosalie takes a few steps in the direction where the sharp-toothed child is gesturing. It does not take her long to notice two figures, sitting on the edge of another bed, one with its head bowed down and with its shoulders twitching, and the other with its arms shielding the first one in a comforting embrace.  
  
'It was horrible!' the bowing figure whimpers, in a tearfully nasal female voice. 'You know... You know how I always say that our bodies... our bodies are like d-delicate machines? Well...'  
  
She heaves an enormous, rasping breath of air.  
  
'I dreamt you had turned into one... There was something... something b-broken inside you, and I was supposed to fix you! There were all these... all these cogs and wheels, like in the...D-Dwe... Dwemer thingies... And I knew that if... If I attached a single one of them wrong, you would... You would die! And worst of all, my grandmother was watching all the time... Sneering... like she always does... Telling me, again and again, that I was going to fail... That... That if... If Sibbi was... If... Sibbi was here, he would... would have...'  
  
'Hush, Ingun,' the one who is hugging the subbing woman whispers gently, brushing her matted black hair out of her eyes.  
  
He is a man, with the characteristically sharp features of a Dark Elf, which have been somewhat softened by a sprinkling of human blood - must as his skin is shaded a pale lilac instead of ashen grey, and the blood-like red of his eyes has been diluted to a more purplish tone. That is, such is his look on normal days - but right now, there are dark shadows bruising his sockets, and his heavy-lidded eyes seem to have welled up with blood. Back in the days when they still lived in another Sanctuary, Rosalie would have assumes that her half-elven Dark Brother had spent the whole night indulging in his favourite vices - but he has not touched either wine or skooma ever since the time that she herself tries so hard to forget: the time when the Brotherhood suffered a devastating blow at the hands of the Emperor's armoured guard dogs, and so many of its high-ranking members were slain. The poor half-elf was crushed by the loss, and Rosalie, Babette the unchild, and his (then future) wife Ingun had to fight for each of his breaths as he benumbed all his senses in a skooma-induced stupor. Having finally braved the climb from the pit where he had tossed himself, he did his utmost to focus on his new duties as Listener, and vowed not to succumb to the dazing sugary vapours ever again. He has been holding up admirably so far, and has not needed to rely on Babette's and Ingun's healing potions for a while - which makes it highly unlikely that he would suddenly revert to his old habits. The only other explanation that comes to Rosalie's mind is that he, too, has fallen prey to a horrible vision like the ones that tainted this night for herself and Ingun.  
  
'Hush, dearest,' the Listener repeats, continuing to cradle his wife in his arms. 'You know you don't need to think about Sibbi or Maven ever again. You got away from them; you got away from Riften - you are pursuing your true calling... And very soon, you will be the best alchemist, the best poison-maker in all Tamriel!'  
  
Even though he tries to maintain a cheerful tone, his voice cracks by the end of the sentence; and this does not escape Ingun.  
  
'Ezio?' she says questioningly, searching his face intently with her gaze. 'Are you all right? You sound like you are about to burst into tears too...'  
  
He rolls up his eyes with an air of deliberate (and false) bravado.  
  
'Don't give me that look! I am not about to relapse if that's what you are worried about!'  
  
'You can never be sure about such things,' Ingun objects, her voice now growing steadier and firmer. 'If you want to talk about it...'  
  
'It's nothing, really,' the Listener says. 'It will pass'.  
  
At this moment, chancing to look away from Ingun, he notices the two other Dark Sisters.  
  
'Oh hey, Babette! Twiggy!'  
  
He gave Rosalie that nickname when she was still not Rosalie; when he found her, half-starved, emaciated, mute and skittish like a wild animal, in the Dwemer ruin where the Afflicted and their shepherd had taken her. And he has stuck to calling her that even after the Brotherhood gathered together, reading typical Breton names out loud from a book to see which one would fit her best.  
  
'I... I suppose you heard us, Twiggy. Babette and I have been comforting In gun after a rather nasty nightmare'.  
  
'I had a nightmare too,' Rosalie says, lowering herself on the covers at the foot of Ingun's bed. 'And unless I am mistaken, so did you'.  
  
'You did, didn't you Ezio?' Ingun joins in again. 'I can feel it. Please don't try to laugh it off!'  
  
'Fine, fine, you win!' he throws up his arms in an exaggerated display of resignation. 'I did not get a particularly restful sleep either. Had a flashback of that moment when my mother - my birth mother, that is, not the Night Mother - was body-snatched by the mighty Sheogorath, Prince of Madness!'  
  
He says the last five words in a comical accent, waving both hands in the air, but there is no mirth in his eyes.  
  
'Not the happiest chapter in my illustrious biography,' he concludes with a sigh, a few moments later. 'But nothing I can't handle'.  
  
'Don't you find it odd that three different people all had a nightmare under one roof?' Babette muses.  
  
'You think there is some dark sorcery at play?' Ezio asks, while absentmindedly stroking the hair of his wife, who has decided that it is now her turn to comfort him with an embrace. 'I wouldn't be so hasty: you know that the prime suspect in these cases is always Nazir's cooking'.  
  
'Don't diss my cooking, you cheeky little skeever!' a deep voice booms indignantly from across the room.  
  
As the four Dark Siblings all turn their heads, they see an extremely cross, unshaven Redguard shuffling towards them, his ornate black-and-red brocade sleeping gown trailing across the floor after him, having slipped off his shoulder and exposed half of his hairy chest.  
  
'Blood and dust, I haven't been able to catch a wink of sleep ever since I woke up in the small hours, thinking that the ghost of an old enemy of nine had his hands round my throat!' he grumbles, pressing his forehead against the empty pewter mug he is carrying. 'And that is not an effect of bad cooking! Not that my cooking is ever bad...'  
  
The Redguard's voice trails off, his words beginning to get slurred; then, abruptly, he tears away from his mug and exclaims in desperation,  
  
'And there is not a grain of coffee in this whole damn place! I thought I bought two new sacks from the Khajiit caravan just the other day, on my way back from a contract!'  
  
'Cicero took all the coffee,' yet another voice joins in, loud and shrill, with a very audible whining undertone. 'Cicero spent all night brewing the nice, warm, tasty-smelling coffee, and drinking it until he burst... Cicero doesn't want to fall asleep ever again!'  
  
As the voice's owner - a short, lithe Imperial with a sharp nose and long red hair, dressed in a weather-worn, caringly patched jester's motley - waddles towards the rest of the Family, the Listener looks at him sympathetically and asks,  
  
'Did you have a bad dream too?'  
  
Cicero responds with a vigorous nod.  
  
'Bad, bad dream,' he sings sadly, tilting his head. 'No colours, no sounds, just poor old Cicero, all alone, staring into a deep black pit, deafened by silence. The cruel, cruel silence, wretched silence, like when Cicero tried to speak to Mother; nothing but silence all dream long. Cicero woke up before the silence could crack his skull - but he does not want to go back! Not back to the silence!'  
  
'All right...' Ezio says slowly, 'All right, I concede... This many nightmares, all so vivid and all in one night, don't just come out of nowhere'.  
  
'Maybe the people of the nearby town are involved somehow?' Nazir suggests. 'I told Delvin Mallory's people, over and over again, not to be too conspicuous when they moved the new stuff into the Sanctuary - but the louts wouldn't listen. I saw a could of local bumpkins gaping at them as they were coming and good; thought nothing of it at the time, couldn't even be bothered to dispose of them... Suppose they spread the news around town, and the people in charge hired a powerful Illusion mage to smoke us out?'  
  
'People in charge?' the Listener chortles. 'You mean the Jarl of Dawnstar? By Sithis, the man doesn't have enough brains to fill a spoon, and what he does have gets wasted on hunting giants and hating on "Imperial basterds"! He wouldn't catch wind of our presence if someone performed the Black Sacrament in his throne room... while naked!'  
  
Quite in spite of herself, Ingun giggles at the mental image, but is almost instantly hushed by Babette; after disciplining her apprentice, the unchild clears her throat and makes an observation of her own,  
  
'Nazir may have a point, now that I think of it. I passed through the streets of Dawnstar during my hunt, and looked through a fair share of windows - and I think I spotted quite a few people tossing and turning in their beds. Maybe they were also having nightmares, just like us?'  
  
'Oooh, a cursed town!' Ezio grins. 'Now that would be a refreshing mystery to solve! Tell you what: how about I try to commune with the Night Mother and hear what she has to say, while...'  
  
'While Cicero oils Mother?' the jester pipes in, a hopeful note appearing in his voice.  
  
'Eh, I think _after_ Cicero oils Mother...' the Listener replies with a chuckle. 'Wouldn't want to disturb the sacred corpse or anything. So... Cicero oils Mother: I talk to mother - and, say, Ingun and Babette hit the books and find out if anything like this has ever happened her before'.  
  
'We can do that,' Ingun agrees. 'And Rosalie could head to town and see what the locals have to say'.  
  
'Oh, yes!' Rosalie responds readily, her mask-like face lighting up with some of the pup-like eagerness her past self used to possess. 'I think I had a robe somewhere; I will pretend to be a mage, lost on the way to Winterhold... You can count on me - I will find out as much as I can! And I will never betray my Family's trust!'  
  
As she blurts out that last phrase, the other Dark Siblings give her a simultaneous baffled look. And they have every reason to be surprised - those words, loud and hasty and breathless, were not really meant for them. They were meant for the leering skeleton in Rosalie's dream.


End file.
